DIGEST / BAY AREA

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, January 13, 2002

MORGAN HILL / Police arrest rape suspect

Police have arrested a man they suspect is responsible for at least two sexual assaults over the past three weeks.

Hector Pete Sanchez, 38, was arrested Friday night by San Jose police who spotted a stolen van belonging to a Morgan Hill rape victim parked outside the California Motel on Monterey Road in San Jose. They identified Sanchez as a man seen in a bank video earlier that day using the ATM card of the victim.

Sanchez, whom police are looking at for possible involvement in other recent sexual assaults, was booked into Santa Clara County Jail on felony charges relating to the Morgan Hill rape, which occurred on Jan. 8, as well as another sexual assault in Capitola on Dec. 20.

A 25-year-old volunteer football coach at a San Jose high school has been arrested on suspicion of fondling a 16-year-old boy and serving alcohol to other teenagers during a series of parties at his home.

Richard Junior Telly was arrested at his home in the 5300 block of Wong Court on Wednesday and held on $6,500 bail, said San Jose Police Sgt. Steve Dixon. The arrest was based on one charge of child annoyance and two charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor -- all misdemeanors, Dixon said.

Baby girl inside stolen car unhurt

A baby girl was found unharmed yesterday morning after her mother's car was briefly stolen but found abandoned an hour later with the child still strapped into her car seat.

The mother had driven up to the baby sitter's house on Tampa Way about 7 a. m. and had carried an armload of belongings into the house, leaving the engine running, said San Jose Police Sgt. Steve Dixon. When the mother came back outside for her child, the car was gone, he said.

SAN RAFAEL / Officers hunt 2 cop impostors

San Rafael police are looking for two men who impersonated police officers in order to rob and kidnap victims in two separate incidents.

Both cases, which police say do not appear to be related, began in the Canal District of San Rafael around midday on Friday. In the first incident, a male suspect approached a San Rafael man on Belvedere Street, identified himself as a police officer and took him to a nearby secluded area, where he took $700 from the victim.

The suspect is described as a clean-cut white man in his 30s with green eyes and short, dark blond or red hair. He is about 5-feet-5-inches tall and weighs about 165 pounds.

In the second incident, police said a man in an older brown Chevy van approached a man at a bus stop near Medway Road at noon. The suspect flashed a laminated card, told the victim he was under arrest and took him in the van to a Richmond house, where he locked him inside a room. The victim escaped.